Hi,
I am trying to analyze CPS data (2002-2015 volunteer supplement pooled-cross sections) examine group-level differences in voluntary behavior. I am using two dependent variables. (vlstatus and vlhallorg). I have two questions about the codes.
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For vlstatus: Who are NIU. Are these respondents who failed to answer, did not know, were not asked or skipped the question?
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For vhallorg, many respondents are given the numeric code (99999). I assume this means not applicable or that the respondents did not volunteer. I recoded the 99999 to 0 and all of the other values as one so I could compare the volunteer hours variable with the volunteer status. Here I find that 1, 194 respondents who marked they did not volunteer in the past year are reporting that they did volunteer at least one hour in the past year. Do you have any thoughts on why (1,194) respondents indicating they are not volunteers are reporting that they volunteered int he last year? Is this an error in the coding of the volunteer status variable? Any tips on how to deal with this?
| RECODE of vlhallorg
| (Annual hours
| volunteered in all
Volunteer | organizations)
Status | 0 1 | Total
----------------±---------------------±---------
Volunteer | 18,560 352,763 | 371,323
Not a volunteer| 925,451 1,194 | 926,645
Not in Universe | 597,111 0 | 597,111
----------------±---------------------±---------
Total | 1,541,122 353,957 | 1,895,079
Any thoughts you may have on this would be very helpful.
Thanks for your time
Dr. Chaudhary
Dept of Sociology
Rutgers University-New Brunswick